War And The Imperfect Nature Of Man

War And The Imperfect Nature Of Man

By Marcus Epstein

(Yes, I know.-Bret)

"There have been thousands of books on military tactics and the history of warfare, as well as philosophical tracts as to what constitutes a just war. Yet few books address the question of why, despite the horrors of war, human beings continually kill each other on a mass scale.

David Livingstone Smith, who teaches philosophy at the University of
New England, attempts to do this in The Most Dangerous Animal: Human
Nature and the Origins of War. Smith uses the field of evolutionary
psychology--the science of looking at social behavior and psychological
traits through the lens of natural selection--to figure out why humans
are capable of war.

Firstly, Smith disposes of the Rousseauian view that humans are
naturally peaceful creatures who have been corrupted by modern
society. He notes that anthropological evidence has found evidence of
war as far back as we have found human remains, and that our closest
related species--chimpanzees--engage in a form of territorial warfare
themselves.

But Smith also dismisses the Hobbesian view that man is naturally
violent and restrains his urge to kill. Even in war, when society not
only permits but demands killing, many if not most soldiers are at
least initially averse to killing their fellow humans.

Smith looks at the actions of groups of chimps who divide along kin
lines and kill other tribes in competition for mates, resources, and
territory. Yet human warfare is more complex. The obvious reason for
this is that humans are capable of more complex ideas and societies.
While some wars are fought for territory and resources, many are
fought over ideologies, religions, or subtle ethnic hatreds. Even in
wars fought over resources, the losers and sometimes even the victors
often lose much more than they have gained.

Smith's answer to this paradox is far too complex to summarize
concisely. To grossly oversimplify, he argues that humans are able to
deceive themselves to viewing the enemy as subhuman or parasitic. This
harkens back to our natural revulsions, fears of predators, and
desires to hunt prey.

You might find many flaws in this, or even think it a "just so story."
But it is certainly a compelling and interesting theory that will get
you thinking.

While this book is broad in its scope, there is one glaring omission.
Smith is obviously right to note that human nature is fixed and many
aspects of it are universal. But he avoids any discussion as to
whether there are any systematic differences between the behavior of
different human groups.

In his recent book, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and
Westerners Think Differently and Why, Richard Nisbett looks at how
seemingly antiquated notions like "national character" are supported
by modern psychometric testing. Although Nisbett rejects a genetic
explanation (he even wrote during the James Watson controversy that
"All Brains Are The Same Color") research on the Human Genome Project
shows that much of this has been evolved.

This point could have been very interesting in explaining how
different cultures act in war. For example, Smith talks a great deal
about the remarkable self-deception involved in justifying war on the
grounds that it will bring good to those actually being attacked. But
this quirk is almost solely confined to Europeans. The Old Right
libertarian essayist Garet Garett wrote,

"The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of
civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The
Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble
myth of the white man's burden. We have added freedom and democracy.
Yet the more that might be added to it the more it is the same
language still. A language of power."[The People's Pottage, (PDF)
1953]

When the Mongols invaded Europe or the Tutsis attack the Hutus, there
is no "higher justification" beyond nationalism and expansion of power
that was used.

This is demonstrated perfectly in Iraq. The US starts a war in the
guise of spreading freedom and democracy while the Iraqis are busy
killing each other along ethnic lines. This is not to say the West is
free of ethnic warfare--in fact, no matter how "Operation: Iraqi
Freedom" was justified, it was able to gain public support largely
because Americans wanted to kill Arabs after 9-11.

Furthermore, while Smith does acknowledge that xenophobia,
nationalism, and bias are products of our evolved human nature, he
sometimes downplays them as arbitrary in group/outgroup traits. Smith
notes that "social animals are often xenophobic"--chimps engage in
raids and violence among kin line. When he discusses the "abstract and
imaginary" goods that humans fight for, he includes "God, honor, race,
democracy, and destiny." Smith suggests that humans try to tie these
in-group/out group abstractions to kinship:

"Internationalists talk about 'the international brotherhood,' 'the
brotherhood of man,' 'the family of man'; participants in the Black
Power movement called one another 'brother' and 'sister,' as do
members of Christian religious orders. Americans ask their nation to
'crown thy good with brotherhood' and citizens of the former Soviet
Union lifted their voices to 'sing to our motherland, home of the
free.' "

Yet if you accept Steve Sailer's definition that "a racial group is an
extended family that is inbred to some degree", African Americans
calling their co-racials "brothers" isn't so far off. (And let's be
honest, "Soul Distant Cousin" doesn't have the same ring to it as
"Soul Brother".) It is significant that the Soviet Union called itself
the "motherland". It was supposed to be the home of an international
revolution. Yet when it was attacked by Germany, it rallied the
proletariat to war by appeals to nationalism, not ideology.

In his book, On Genetic Interests Frank Salter of the Max Planck
Institute has looked at the comparative genetic differences of ingroup
ethnic populations, or ethnies, compared to other ethnies. Salter
found that the differences between even relatively similar ethnies
like Brits and Danes are equal to the differences within the group.
Therefore, some level of ethnic nationalism is no different from
familial loyalty. Salter has gone as far as describing ideologies as
"fitness profiles" that are created to unify an ethny. In moderation,
this level of nationalism is healthy for a population. But like most
genetic traits it can go to extremes, which can lead to ethnic
violence.

A great many wars are ethnic and racial conflicts. A firm
understanding of race and ethnicity would add a great deal to our
understanding of war. One possible conclusion: don't unnecessarily put
ethnic groups in shared territories. Yet Smith suggests that apartheid
(which literally means "separateness") was a form of warfare.

The fields of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology are not common
knowledge, even among highly educated people. The purpose of a "public
intellectual" is to take an academic discipline and make it accessible
to the general public. Smith certainly does the job.

Unlike most specialists in sociobiology whose specialty is usually in
biology or psychology, Smith is a philosopher by training. He makes
his book flow quickly by taking reflections on war by famous
statesmen, soldiers, authors, and intellectuals as starting points,
then discussing how those thoughts correspond to his understanding of
the nature of war. This works remarkably well. It is surprising how he
finds wisdom even in those whose views one would think he'd dismiss--
for example, Williams Jennings Bryan.

This book is primarily about war. Sociobiology and evolutionary
psychology are merely the main tool Smith uses to analyze his subject.
Nonetheless, I suspect most readers not familiar with the discipline
may have some questions about it. It would have been wise to recommend
a book like E.O. Wilson's On Human Nature or Steven Pinker's The Blank
Slate in the pages.

Many conservatives will not like this book. Obviously those who
question the theory of evolution will be averse to a book that is
premised on Darwin's dangerous idea. Even those who are willing to
accept that the origin of species is natural selection may question
Smith's description of human nature, morality, and even religion as
products of evolutionary adaptation.

Many believers will dismiss the book outright, which would be a shame.
Unlike his fellow Darwinian popularizer Richard Dawkins, Smith does
not stigmatize religion. But his nonchalant dismissal of God as
"imaginary" may upset theists even more. There is a great debate among
evolutionists about whether their theory disproves the existence of
God. Smith clearly believes it does. While he is entitled to his view,
it was unnecessary to put it into the book, and his matter-of-fact
rejection of a higher power without any justification makes him--fairly
or not--seem oblivious to the deepest convictions of most Americans.

Other conservatives would complain that Smith is a moral relativist.
He explicitly denies there is objective morality, and finds the terms
terrorism and genocide to be pejorative and useless in our
understanding of war. He does not view actions by Al Qaeda, Nazi
Germany, and Soviet Russia as uniquely evil or even radically
different by some actions perpetrated by the US government.
Libertarians will not be happy with his insistence on differentiating
"the state's monopoly on violence" from individual acts of murder.

Nonetheless, The Most Dangerous Animal is in many ways a very
conservative book. Russell Kirk's sixth principle of conservative
thought was "conservatives are chastened by their principle of
imperfectability." This book tells us a great deal of how imperfect we
are, and from there we can learn how to best live with our
shortcomings.

In his conclusion Smith notes that "in a book like this it is
conventional to close with reflections on the future of war". But
admirably he avoids any predictions, or ideological and policy
prescriptions. There are no suggestions on how to reduce warfare
beyond reiterating the two simple facts: Man is averse to war because
of the horror, death, and destruction it brings upon us; yet it is
nonetheless pleasurable because of our natural desire to hunt prey.

The only way to avoid war, he concludes, is to highlight the horrors
of war so that they will outweigh its allure in our subconscious. All
Quiet on the Western Front is considered an antiwar book, not so much
for its philosophizing on warfare, but for simply giving an accurate
depiction of what it's like. Pro-war pundits today call treason when
newspapers merely display military coffins being unloaded.

I can heartily agree with this recommendation and would go one step
further. Russell Kirk expounded on his sixth principle,

"Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the
conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever
can be created... All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably
ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments,
and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent
reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the
old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then
the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose. "

Our nation's founders knew that war was part of our nature, but did
not wish to repeat the perpetual fratricides of Europe. Following
these principles, they made it very difficult to declare war. Despite
our many interventions since World War II, the United States has been
relatively peaceful during its existence. When it has been at war, it
is usually been because those "moral safeguards" such as checks on
executive power have been neglected.

It is not an accident that Ron Paul is both the most consistent
proponent of strict constructionism and non-intervention in Congress.

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations whose son was
killed in the Iraq War, blurbed on the back of the book that its
conclusions were "disturbing".

Yet I don't believe they are. No-one but the most cockeyed utopian
thinks that we can eliminate war. The fact that war is in our nature
does not mean that our country must always be at war.

But with a better understanding of why we fight, we would be wise to
avoid fighting for futile causes like ending endemic ethnic conflicts--
much less "wars to end all wars."<<

Marcus Epstein [send him mail] is the founder of the Robert A Taft
Club and the executive director of the The American Cause and Team
America PAC. A selection of his articles can be seen here. The views
he expresses are his own.

If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this
permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/epstein/080129_war.htm
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